


Fine, Dammit!

by pantswarrior



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, Humor, Kink Meme, Mind Meld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-28
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:11:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantswarrior/pseuds/pantswarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What terrible lasting effects did the forced mind-meld in Mirror, Mirror have on Dr. McCoy? None whatsoever, except for the part where no one believes him when he says so.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> There was a kink meme prompt requesting a fic where really - Bones is just fine, doesn't feel horribly violated, hasn't had his brain or his memory messed with. Which is my headcanon. But most of fandom doesn't seem to agree, thus neither do the canon characters. ;)

It all started at the debriefing session that night, when the four of them who had been pulled into that strange, cruel universe got together to compile the report of their experience, with Spock as recorder. Everything was going just fine, until Jim made an incorrect assumption.

"In this one instance," he stated for the record, "it seemed to be to our detriment to have a particularly talented doctor; upon insisting to stay behind in sickbay to treat Spock, who had a potentially mortal wound from our battle, the treatment worked a little too well. Spock awoke before Dr. McCoy had a chance to join us in the transporter room, and made the doctor tell him the truth."

"Hold on, Jim - that's not exactly how it happened," McCoy spoke up. "Actually, that other Spock pulled the information right out of my brain."

Everyone turned to stare at him. In retrospect, McCoy realized he should have kept his mouth shut.

"My alternate universe counterpart used the mind-meld technique?" Spock inquired.

"Yeah, that's right," said McCoy. "I'd forgotten what you Vulcans called it."

"Without your consent?" Spock continued, looking even more serious than was usual for him.

"He joined your mind to his?" Jim put in. "Against your will?" Beside him, Uhura gasped.

"Yeah." McCoy glanced around the table. "...What?"

"That's awful!" Scotty declared. "T'have your thoughts dragged out on someone else's say-so..."

"Such things are not done among Vulcans," Spock stated.

"Apparently they are in that other universe," McCoy said with a shrug. "Anyway, yeah - that's how he knew we didn't belong there."

"It is a serious invasion of one's emotional privacy," Spock continued, ignoring McCoy's attempt to return to the matter they were actually there to address. "Such an invasion would be considered nearly on par with the physical act of rape."

McCoy rolled his eyes. "Maybe to Vulcans, but humans are pretty open about their emotions. Look, do I make a secret of how much you annoy me?"

"Bones, don't-" Jim began, then turned to Spock. "Spock, turn off the recorder. Bones, don't brush this off as if it were nothing," he continued, as Spock did so. "It must have been terrible. Why didn't you tell anyone - were you ashamed?"

"You could say that," McCoy muttered. "Ashamed I got caught, ashamed that my brain was going to be responsible for all of us getting executed."

"You don't need to be ashamed," Uhura assured him, reaching over to pat his hand gently. "It's not your fault at all."

"I know that," McCoy told her, trying to remain patient. "Jim, I didn't tell you because I figured it wasn't a big deal. I mean, how did you _think_ he got all that information so fast?"

"He told me you were 'delicate'," Jim replied, his expression growing more patronizingly sympathetic by the second. "I had assumed that when threatened by someone of drastically superior strength, you simply told him."

"Gee, _thanks_, Jim," McCoy groaned. "Good to know you have so much faith in me. Now that that's straightened out, can we finish this debriefing? I'd like to get back to my quarters, wash up, have a few drinks..."

"Aye - nothin' like a good tall drink t' make ye forget somethin' like that," Scotty agreed.

"But you can't run from your memories forever," Uhura told him gently, squeezing his hand. "You'll have to confront them someday. And we'll be right here with you when you're ready."

"I don't need to confront anything!" McCoy snapped, giving in to his annoyance. "It's not that big a deal!"

"The doctor seems agitated," Spock observed, turning to Jim, and Jim nodded in sympathetic agreement. "Perhaps we should excuse him, and let him rest after such an ordeal."

"I don't... You know what, never mind - if you're offering, I'm accepting," McCoy told them. "Everything else that happened in that other universe, you were all there for anyway."

"If only we'd been there when you needed us most," Jim mused sadly. "If there's anything we can do for you..."

"You can leave me alone," McCoy said flatly, getting up from his chair. "I'm fine. See you on alpha shift."

"Are y' sure y' want to be _alone_?" Scotty asked. "I could bring a bottle o'-"

"I'm fine!" The biggest drawback to the automatic doors aboard the Enterprise, to McCoy's mind, was that he couldn't slam one behind him right now to make his point more obvious. But at least he was on one side of those doors, and their concerns about him were on the other.

Naturally, it wasn't to last.


	2. Scotty

The next morning, when he arrived in sickbay, McCoy almost immediately threw his arm up to shield his eyes. "What the hell? Computer, dim the lights to fifty percent." After hearing the computer chirp, he dared to uncover his face. A little more dim than usual, but that was a huge improvement over what he'd walked in on.

"Ah... did I overdo it?"

McCoy blinked, and as his eyes readjusted themselves, he found Montgomery Scott up on a ladder, with one of the lighting panels open. "I don't even know what exactly you're doing, but my inclination is to say _yes_, you overdid it."

"I know y'r sickbay and that other sickbay are next t' identical," Scotty said, dropping to the ground and brushing off his hands. All of a sudden, he looked decidedly awkward. "Look, Dr. McCoy - I'm an engineer, I work with machines. I dunno quite so much about how t' help a person who's breakin' down, if y'know what I'm sayin'..."

"That's fine, that's my job," McCoy muttered. "Just as long as you can fix whatever's wrong with the lights in here. So who's breaking down?"

"I figured, even if I didn't know what to say, I could do this."

McCoy was getting more suspicious by the moment. "What did you do?"

"I increased the brightness of the overhead lighting by one hundred fifty percent," Scotty said proudly.

"...Why?"

"Why, so it'd be nice an' bright, an' you wouldna be reminded of that dimly lit sickbay where that evil Mr. Spock took advantage of you," Scotty explained. "I figured comin' back here the first time would be a mite tough."

"Yes, but only because I was nearly blinded," McCoy told him flatly. "Now I know how those Denevan parasites felt. Now what's this about someone breaking down? Who?"

"Well, I was talkin' about _you_," Scotty replied with a sympathetic nod. "Spock said the whole experience, bein' melded against your will an' all, would have been extremely traumatic."

"Well, Spock's wrong," McCoy muttered. "Look, I appreciate the fact that you're trying to help. But I don't need any help."

"Ah, maybe not, maybe not..." Scotty muttered under his breath, then looked up again brightly. "But anytime you want to have a drink an' talk it over, I'm around."

McCoy sincerely hoped that he wouldn't be, but his annoyance had died off at least a little overnight - he didn't want to bite the guy's head off for trying to be considerate, no matter how unnecessary it was. "All right... Anyway, the lighting's fine as it is, thanks."

"Glad you like it. I'll just be a little longer while I get this panel closed up again..." Scotty began to climb back up the ladder. "Oh, an' by the way - Spock said he'd be stopping by in a little while. He wanted to ask you something about... y'know... what happened to you."

"Dammit," McCoy growled, and turned right back around and left.


	3. Uhura

"Doctor."

Bones rolled his eyes before he even looked up from the lab equipment. He knew that voice, and he knew what it was going to say. "Spock, I'm fine."

"You have been growing more and more agitated since the incident," Spock continued, standing beside the table and looking down at him. "Mr. Scott informed me yesterday morning that you could not bear to remain in sickbay, and now you appear to be trying to hide yourself from my presence. I can only assume that despite your protests, there is some lingering psychological trauma resulting from the nonconsentual mind-meld you endured."

"Actually, it's just lingering psychological trauma resulting from you people pestering me," McCoy told him, turning back to the monitor. "It's been two days. Scotty's messing with everything electronic in my vicinity..." He'd gone back to sickbay later to discover that the audio notifications on the biobeds had been changed from the familiar urgent beeping to a soothing chime, at a volume so low he could hardly hear it. "Jim keeps calling down here just to make sure I'm all right - and _you_ keep following me around."

"Do you feel unsafe in my presence?" Spock inquired.

"I don't feel unsafe - I feel _annoyed_," McCoy informed him. "There's a big difference."

"In that case, doctor," Spock began, and his tone changed to something even more businesslike - almost imperceptible, but enough that McCoy looked up warily again. Spock sounded like _he_ did when he told some kid that it wouldn't hurt a bit, and he was lying through his teeth. "To be certain that there has been no permanent alteration or damage, I would like to perform a mind-meld on you myself, so that I may relive your memory of the incident, and-"

"_No._" That, as far as McCoy was concerned, was the last thing he wanted to do.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "May I ask why you resist so strongly?"

"Because it's not necessary."

"It is, however, a wise precaution to take."

"No it's not, because I'm perfectly fine," McCoy told him emphatically, folding his arms across his chest as he turned his chair to face Spock more squarely.

Spock looked down at him for a moment. "You have adopted a defensive posture. In humans, this usually accompanies a feeling of uneasiness, or even fear."

...Damn. McCoy made himself uncross his arms, and glared up at Spock defiantly. "Do I look afraid to you?"

"That is in fact why I pointed out your posture." Spock hesitated again. "I have performed a mind-meld with you before. It seems quite unusual that you would be so resistant to the idea now, unless-"

He was saved by the lab's doors opening. Both he and Spock turned to see a look of surprise cross Uhura's face as she entered. "Oh... Mr. Spock, I didn't realize you were here too."

"He was just leaving," McCoy said.

Spock gave him a puzzled look. "I was not leaving."

"Yes you were," McCoy told him. "What can I do for you, Uhura?"

She looked back and forth between the two of them. "I'm not interrupting anything, am I?"

"Not at-"

"Dr. McCoy and I were discussing the possibility of another mind-meld to determine and perhaps correct the trauma inflicted by my alternate self's mind-meld," Spock interrupted.

"No we weren't!" McCoy snapped. "It's not going to happen, Spock."

"You may notice that he seems rather defensive about the suggestion," Spock pointed out.

Uhura frowned at Spock. "Well, what did you expect, that he'd jump at the chance? Spock, he just had someone invade his mind - why would he want to have it happen again?"

"If he claims that it was relatively inoffensive," Spock reasoned, "then he should have little cause to object."

"But if he's objecting, then he's objecting," Uhura told him, coming to stand beside McCoy's chair and resting her arm lightly across his shoulders. She gave him a sweet smile as she looked down. "I'm on break, doctor - have you had lunch yet?"

Thank goodness for Uhura - she was giving him a way out. "As a matter of fact, I haven't," McCoy said with a smile, offering his arm as he stood. "If you were asking for company..."

"That may have been my intention," she replied, taking it. "Sorry, Mr. Spock. You'll have to discuss it later."

"...Indeed," Spock muttered, as McCoy walked past him, Uhura on his arm. McCoy couldn't help but give him a smirk.

"I owe you one," he told Uhura, once they were out of the lab. "I don't think that Vulcan would've taken no for an answer."

"I'm sure he would have come around eventually," Uhura reasoned. "He's _not_ like that other Spock, after all. But he just doesn't understand the way human emotion works, not like you and I."

"It's as alien to him as those pointy ears are to us," McCoy agreed.

"But _I_ understand," Uhura told him sincerely, looking up to meet his eyes. "When a human's been violated, the way you were-"

McCoy's smile faded just a little. "Uh, actually..."

"Trying to _force_ the story out of them is the worst thing someone can do," Uhura continued. "You have to be gentle, compassionate, patient..."

"Are we having lunch, or what?" McCoy asked, as if he couldn't hear the patronizing tone of voice.

"Of course we are, doctor," she said gently. "Of course we are. And during lunch, if you want to talk about anything at all, I'd be happy to listen."

McCoy started considering things he might like to talk about over lunch. The incredibly stubborn intestinal parasites a couple of crew members had picked up on an away mission a couple months back might just do the trick...


	4. Kirk

It had been a week now. They had to believe him _some_time, things had to get back to normal. If not, they were going to be out one ship's doctor, because he was going to diagnose himself as having had some kind of mental breakdown... Then again, no - Spock would just say it was proof.

Uhura still kept giving him those big, sympathetic eyes - pretty eyes, certainly, but even so - and offering to listen, no matter what gruesome medical problems he decided he felt like discussing. Thanks to Scotty, every warning system in sickbay had been reprogrammed with quieter, less jarring sounds; McCoy couldn't figure out what he was being alerted to without going and looking the whole damn place over. And Spock kept insisting that he had nothing to fear from an additional, precautionary mind-meld, if he was really as okay as he claimed to be. But he had his reasons, and there was _no way_ he was going to let Spock get a look at that particular moment...

At least Jim seemed to have given up. McCoy hadn't been subjected to the captain's harassment via communicator every couple hours for a few days now, after McCoy had finally snapped at him to just _leave him alone_. McCoy felt bad, a little... but at least it had gotten results. He'd thought about going to the bridge, to make it clear that everything was perfectly okay between them now, as long as Jim stopped worrying about them... but then again, Spock and Uhura were probably there too.

Finally, McCoy gave in and headed to the captain's quarters, just after duty hours. He'd probably have stopped in at least for a second, and no one else would be there to bug them. Sure enough, he heard Jim's voice telling him to enter, and came in to find Jim alone. Alone, and looking particularly startled to see McCoy.

"Well, ah, Bones," Jim greeted him awkwardly, sitting up from where he'd been reclining on his bed. "It's good to see you. Uh. Is there something I can do for you? Everything all right?"

Jim had his shirt off, which was not exactly unusual. There was _something_ funny going on, though... something about Jim's posture. "Everything's fine, Jim," McCoy began, while still puzzling over it. "I just wanted to say... sorry for biting your head off the other day. I know you were just concerned about me," he admitted, "but it's just there's _no need_ for concern."

"Are you sure?" Jim asked. "Because if you'd like to talk about anything..."

"Then maybe I would've taken Uhura up on her offer of the same, or Scotty's offer of a few drinks," McCoy informed him. Yes... definitely something weird about the way Jim was sitting, kind of twisted. "I honestly _am_ just fine. And I appreciate you leaving me alone like I asked."

"I'm... glad it worked out." Jim smiled up at him.

Weird that Jim hadn't gotten up. His posture was strange. And now that McCoy was looking, there was something on the bed, where Jim had been lying down... McCoy was starting to put the pieces together. "Jim," he began sternly, "let me see your left side."

"Oh, uh..." Jim didn't move an inch.

"Jim..." McCoy said again, and this time it was a warning.

After a long hesitation, Jim sighed in resignation and turned, revealing the deep gash that _had_ to be the source of the blood on the towel that was laid across Jim's bed.

"Dammit, Jim," McCoy grumbled, coming closer to investigate. "When did this happen?"

"Yesterday, during the away mission," Jim admitted. "There was a minor accident - the area had some narrow cliffs, sharp rocky outcroppings..."

"And why didn't you come to sickbay?"

Jim shrugged, innocent, as if the thought had never occurred to him. "You wanted to be left alone, I thought I'd give you time to heal yourself. Spock said you were even more distraught after his suggestion of an exploratory mind-meld-"

"I'm not distraught - I'm just incredibly annoyed!" McCoy insisted. "Come on, we need to take care of this."

"It's only a little cut, nothing that won't heal on its own," Jim protested. "Injuries like this healed just fine before the invention of dermal generators. _Your_ pain, however, is much more-"

"Oh, just shut up and come with me," McCoy growled. "_My_ pain is named James T. Kirk, at the moment."

Gingerly, Jim stood. "...You're an unselfish man, Bones. Healing the wounds of others rather than dealing with your own... If it makes you feel better, then I'll go."

What would have made him feel much better at the moment, McCoy thought, would be tranquilizing everyone who ever heard about that mind-meld, just so they'd stop acting so _stupid_.


	5. Spock

"Listen, Spock. I'll make a deal with you."

Spock peered curiously at him. "...What sort of deal, doctor?"

McCoy continued looking him straight in the eye, his expression firm. As annoyed as he was with Spock showing up in sickbay to pester him _again_, he knew even worse things would happen if he didn't take drastic measures. "Well, when you mind-meld, my thoughts are your thoughts, right?"

"That is correct; the reverse is also true."

"So if I let you mind-meld me, and thought about the mind-meld in that other universe... that's what you'd remember too, right? You wouldn't go pulling anything else unrelated out of there?"

"As that was precisely my complaint about what my other self subjected you to," Spock replied, "I certainly would not do so myself."

"Then I consent to your mind-meld," McCoy told him, "under one condition: When we're through, you let everyone else know that I'm just fine, you've verified I'm just fine, and they can stop harassing me. Do we have a deal?"

Spock raised an eyebrow, considering. "That sounds quite logical. Are you certain there is nothing the matter with you?"

"Ha, ha." McCoy closed his eyes. "Let's just get this over with, all right?"

"Why are you closing your eyes?" Spock inquired.

"Concentration," McCoy said. "Taking myself back to that moment, exactly - the moment he started poking around in my head." And _past_ the moment that had preceded it. "Is that all right?"

"Quite all right," Spock agreed, and a moment later, McCoy felt fingers placed on his cheek and on his temple. He concentrated, just as he'd said, on that moment...

He'd felt terror, humiliation. He'd also felt the other Spock's surprise, and a hint of amusement before he found himself thinking, unbidden, of what had happened, where they had come from, what their intentions were. He could tell the other Spock was intrigued, and eventually something distinctly negative, while he himself was horrified to think of what was going to happen to Jim and the others, just because he couldn't help but try to be the doctor he always had been... and then the other Spock released him, and he slumped back against the wall beneath that stony stare.

"...And that's it," he murmured, bringing himself back to the present, where it was his own universe's Spock who had his fingers on his face, though his eyes remained shut. "See? Nothing happened, no damage done, no lasting trauma. He just made me think about what was going on, and then he let go."

Spock, on the other hand, was not letting go just yet. "I am curious," he said. "Since you seemed to deliberately avoid your memory of what happened just before your mind joined with that of my duplicate, what was it that caused him to feel surprised and amused?"

Yes, that had in fact been deliberate. Just thinking about thinking about it made him feel a stab of fear - which caused him to feel Spock's curiosity jump. "It's embarrassing," McCoy muttered.

"You are afraid to think about it," Spock observed, "although the mind-meld did not frighten you more than the dangerous situation warranted."

"Well, what happened before the mind-meld had nothing to do with the mind-meld," McCoy pointed out. "And since you were worried about the mind-meld, doesn't that mean you don't need to know?"

But he could sense that Spock _wanted_ to know, even if McCoy didn't want to...

...Uh oh, he _was_ remembering it.

That other Spock had grabbed his wrist, backed him up against the wall, and every cell in his body was screaming to get away, but he couldn't. The other Spock had leaned in, looking him straight in the eye as he'd begun to raise his hand...

**Damn**, Spock really **does** look good with a beard.

McCoy blinked as Spock's hand jerked away, and looked up to see Spock staring back at him in what appeared to be mild alarm. Which for _Spock_ was more like abject horror.

The two of them just stared at each other warily for what seemed like eons, until Spock turned his head. "I will advise the captain and the others that you have suffered no significant trauma, and should be treated with only the usual courtesies."

McCoy cleared his throat. "Thanks," he muttered. Pity he couldn't even be pleased with that victory at the moment - he was too humiliated.

"...I, on the other hand," Spock added, "cannot say that I have not been traumatized by an unwarranted mind-meld."

"Serves you right, you damn hobgoblin."


End file.
